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Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
From The Last Animal by Abby Geni

"On my way to the hospital, I dialed Kenneth on the cell phone I had borrowed from one of the farm workers. I wept for a full minute before I could get out the words."

Monday, July 29, 2013

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…• Describe one of your reading habits.• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).• What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it! • Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!On Friday, I got approved to read an ARC of Bellman and Black by Diane Setterfield. It's a mystery with supernatural undertones, and sounds absolutely fabulous. Plus, that cover is gorgeously lush. I really hope it doesn't disappoint!

Saturday, July 27, 2013

On a damp October night, the body of young, beautiful Ashley Cordova is found in an abandoned warehouse in lower Manhattan. By all appearances her death is a suicide--but investigative journalist Scott McGrath suspects otherwise. Though much has been written about the dark and unsettling films of Ashley's father, Stanislas Cordova, very little is known about the man himself. As McGrath pieces together the mystery of Ashley's death, he is drawn deeper and deeper into the dark underbelly of New York City and the twisted world of Stanislas Cordova, and he begins to wonder--is he the next victim? In this novel, the dazzlingly inventive writer Marisha Pessl offers a breathtaking mystery that will hold you in suspense until the last page is turned.

This is definitely an interesting book. I enjoyed
the first half immensely, although the second half dragged a bit and the ending
didn’t quite deliver on the suspense. It’s an atmospheric mystery story that
provides quite a bit of frights.

The novel starts off quickly, the author immediately
building up a sense of suspense that submerges the reader into a strange,
almost psychedelic underworld. This is the book’s strength; the mood, the settings,
the descriptions. The characters don’t fare quite as well, since we don’t
really get too much about Hopper or Nora, almost to the point where we don’t
really know why they were part of the story at all. The protagonist is better
developed, a fuller, richer character, but still we don’t identify with him
quite as much as I’d have liked.

There are some down-right scary scenes in the book.
This is a huge achievement in a book nowadays when we are all so jaded by
visual stimuli, so I must congratulate the author on that. The final chapters, however,
are disappointing. The huge build up of suspense and horror peter out without
any real conclusion. It felt like the author didn’t know just how to tie all
the loose ends together into a believable finale. The last chapter in
particular, is laughable.

It’s hard to give a proper recommendation on this
book. There were a lot of good things about it, but there was also a lot that
needed some work. All I can say is try it for yourself and see what you think.

Friday, July 26, 2013

I have a strange system. The books that I've not read yet, or my TBR piles, are in my room, stacked in odd places. Now, after I finish a book, I move it to my library, which is the room next door, into whatever free shelf space I can find. That way I know that ever book in my room is one I haven't read before.

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

This prize-winning debut of twelve stories explores a femininity that is magical, raw, and grotesque. Aghast at the failings of their bodies, this cast of misfit women and girls sets out to remedy the misdirection of their lives in bold and reckless ways.

Figure skaters screw skate blades into the bones of their feet to master elusive jumps. A divorcee steals the severed arm of her ex to reclaim the fragments of a dissolved marriage. Following the advice of a fashion magazine, teenaged girls binge on grapes to dye their skin purple and attract prom dates. And a college freshman wages war on her roommate from Jupiter, who has inadvertently seduced all the boys in their dorm with her exotic hermaphroditic anatomy.

But it isn’t just the characters who are in crisis. In Lungs Full of Noise, personal disasters mirror the dissolution of the natural world. Written in lyrical prose with imagination and humor, Tessa Mellas’s collection is an aviary of feathered stories that are rich, emotive, and imbued with the strength to suspend strange new worlds on delicate wings.

This is another fabulous short story collection that
was difficult to put down.

For anyone who loves the macabre, like I do, the
book’s cover alone will make you pick it up and read the blurb. Let me tell
you, this was one crazy ride. I think my favorite story, though, was the very
first one, in which figure skaters nail their skates to their feet in an
attempt at being something else, no longer women, but “Mariposa Girls”, or
butterfly girls. It’s a visceral story that makes the reader feel a bit ill as
she reads. Definitely one of the more nuanced stories in the collection.

The writing is beautifully dark. It’s the kind of
book that should be read at night, surrounded by silence, so that you can feel
the isolation that some of these characters feel. So that the world feels just
as stark as the stories.

This is one I’d definitely recommend to all lovers
of literary fiction and to those who have a bit of a dark side in their reading
habits.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
From The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

"What are they? Are they diseased or demonic? Are they citizens who have become ill, deserving hospitals and care, as some have argued? Or are they the bodies of our loved ones animated by some dark force that we ought to seek to destroy?"

Monday, July 22, 2013

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…• Describe one of your reading habits.• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).• What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it! • Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!
I just started reading The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black. It's got vampires in it, which is lots of fun, and they're the scary kind, not the glittery kind, which is a relief. It's turning out to be a really entertaining read, so far. Hopefully, it'll continue that way.

Friday, July 19, 2013

Book Vacay: Where is the best destination reading spot for you? (Where do you like to go to read other then your home)

Hmm. Well, I love camping, so taking a scary book to read inside my tent lit only by a halogen lamp. Stephen King books are fantastic for this. I just love being awake long into the night in some forest with nothing around me but woods and having King scare the crap out of me.

But it isn't the monster Conor's been expecting. He's been expecting the one from his nightmare, the one he's had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments, the one with the darkness and the wind and the screaming...

This monster is something different, though. Something ancient, something wild. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor.

It wants the truth.

What a lovely book this was. I love to be able to
recommend a book for all ages, and this is definitely one of them.

Its structure, I thought, was clever. It has an
almost fairytale feeling to it, with a good dose of fantasy mixed in with
reality, and even a few stories-within-stories that add to the novel’s depth.
The subject is not light, though; it deals with death and loss, and with the anger
at feeling useless in the face of that loss. Not a light read, but one that
goes by quickly, since the pacing is masterfully handled.

The protagonist, Conor, is completely real. There’s
just no chance for the reader not to identify with him and his struggles, no
matter what age you might be. The mixture of despair and hope running through
his head is expertly written. The other characters are just as vivid, even the
monster, which is not an easy thing to accomplish. One “real” character is hard
enough, but an entire book full of them? Incredible.

I truly enjoyed this book. And I highly, highly
recommend it to everyone.

Monday, July 15, 2013

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…• Describe one of your reading habits.• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.I just finished reading a fabulous little book called A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness. I'll be writing the review sometime today, but I just wanted to recommend it here as well. It's is such a lovely, clever book for all ages.

Friday, July 12, 2013

Eight different characters, each with his or her own perspective on the tragedy, recount the drive-by shooting of a child in the back seat of her father's car.

This book’s premise was promising. It immediately
caught my attention because it sounded like completely like something I’d love
to read. It is about an accident on the interstate told over and over from
different points and perspectives; one of the kind of books that is full of
details and nuances. Unfortunately, it did not deliver on its promise.

The main issue I found was its length. It really is
too long. It is too “wordy”. I understand that most of it is stream-of-thought,
but it could still be trimmed down to a more manageable level. Even the first
chapter, when we see the whole accident and its consequences, would have needed
a good edit. The first chapter, or the first “story”, is the best of the bunch,
and I think would have been served better by standing alone. It is complex
enough on its own and it really doesn’t need all the other retellings.

The rest of the chapters feel superfluous, which is
a harsh thing to say, since this does attempt to be a full-length novel, but it
just droned on and on, every little minutia of the main character’s life told
over and over, in different ways, yes, but not different enough to make it
amusing.

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

In Dark Diversions acclaimed author John Ralston Saul stages a black comedy of international proportions that takes the reader from New York to Paris to Morocco to Haiti in the 1980s and 1990s. When he’s not encountering dictators in Third World hot spots, Saul’s narrator moves in privileged circles on both sides of the Atlantic, insinuating himself into the lives of well-to-do aristocrats. Through his exploits we experience a fascinating world of secret lovers, exiled princesses, death by veganism, and religious heresies. The emotional fireworks of these inhabitants of the First World are sharply juxtaposed with the political infighting of the dictators and the corruption, double-dealing, and fawning that attend them. But as he becomes further enmeshed in these worlds, his outsider status grows more ambiguous: Is he a documentarian of privileged foibles and fundamental inequity, or an embodiment of the very “dark diversions” he chronicles?

I think the marketing for this book is not as
efficient as it could be. If you look it up on Goodreads or Amazon, the blurbs
all make it seem as if this is one complete novel, when in fact it would have
served the book better to publicize it as a collection of interconnected
stories with the same protagonist in all of them.

Since I was expecting a coherent story, beginning,
middle, and end, the first half of the book was in parts amusing and boring,
since nothing really fit together. If I’d known they were all separate stories,
maybe I would have read it more like a short story collection. It just felt
incredibly disjointed to me. The writing itself is good and the characterizations
for the most part are handled well, but the reader is left feeling with a
hollowness while we are reading it which, at least, for me, does not make it
one that I can recommend to other people. If taken by themselves a few of these
chapters, or stories, are quite interesting, but as a whole, the book
disappointed. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t anything I’ll remember after a
couple of months, either.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

"Maybe your next door neighbor found one of his movies in an old box in her attic and never entered a dark room again. Or your boyfriend bragged he'd discovered a contraband copy of At Night All Birds Are Black on the Internet and after watching it refused to speak of it, as if it were a horrific ordeal he'd barely survived."

Monday, July 8, 2013

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…• Describe one of your reading habits.• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.I started reading another book I got from NetGalley called Interstate by Stephen Dixon. It's an interesting read. The book tells about the shooting of a little girl on an interstate from many different points of view. Definitely a masterfully done study on character and a very compelling read.

Friday, July 5, 2013

Q: Today’s is the US’ Independence Day. Share your favorite book with a war in it, or an overthrow of the government.

I'm tempted to say the last Harry Potter book, but I think I'll stick with one my original answer, which is the Dragonlance Chronicles. It's a trilogy that takes place during the War of the Lance, and it is just awesome. The book is high fantasy, which is not my usual genre, but I absolutely love these books.

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

This classic tale from the author of The Last Unicorn is a journey between the realms of the living and the dead, and a testament to the eternal power of love.Michael Morgan was not ready to die, but his funeral was carried out just the same. Trapped in the dark limbo between life and death as a ghost, he searches for an escape. Instead, he discovers the beautiful Laura...and a love stronger than the boundaries of the grave and the spirit world.

This was definitely a quirky, delightful book that
is shockingly perceptive and nuanced for having been written when the author
was only nineteen years old.

It’s hard to describe just what genre it fits in,
with its touches of fantasy, Gothic sensibilities and incisive character
development. Maybe a Gothic literary novel? But never mind its genre. The
writing is stellar, really beautiful. The dialogue in particular is written
with such an ear for conversation that it makes the characters leap off the
page. Especially Ms. Klapper, one of the protagonists. Her New York accent
comes right through the pages and into the reader’s ear.

There are some scenes that could have used with a
little editing, I feel. Some of them ran a bit too long without really moving
the story or character development along, so it would have made the story
quicker-paced if they’d been truncated just a teensy bit.

It’s a tough one to recommend because it is so
different. It’s fantasy elements are pretty strong (there is even a talking
raven) but there is also lots of existential worries in all the characters, so
it is hard to know if everyone will like it or not. I enjoy it a lot, so I’ll
take the chance and recommend it.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!